This is when you photograph a subject near to, or at life size. I use macro photography for some of my plant portraits.

Aster

And it is great for art subjects too.

New compacts, bridge cameras or even smart phones are geared up to take great macro shots now.

Taken with a Canon G15

Taken with my Samsung S5

Pretty impressive stuff, and the file sizes are impressive too.

However, you do need to use equipment that is suitable for your end use:

Web use - the second 2 options are fine

Professional quality art prints or physical publishing such as magazines then you still need to go the DSLR+macro lens route (mostly)

Mastering the technique

As with most things once you have nailed this, you just have fun getting a good composition and seeing the results.

So here are my tips on how to shoot great macro images:

Use a tripod or fix the camera on a table or similar

Set to manual focus

Set to aperture priority to control background blur

Set the lowest ISO speed you can ideally 100

Use a remote control and mirror lock-up facility if your camera has one. This is useful if you use a long shutter speed

Once you have mastered the technique it's all about composition, choosing:

the right angles,

the correct aperture, and

the correct point of focus

Top tip: shoot the same subject several times altering the aperture (f-stop) each time then choose which one has the right amount of the subject in focus and good background blur. Edit on your computer, ideally; blow it up to 100% to see what it really looks like. This takes a bit more time but guarantees you a good result.

Shooting butterflies and insects Watch out for my blog post on that. It's a whole new technique. Why not sign up to our email subscriber list for a heads up on when I will be posting,'Shooting butterflies dead...SHARP!'